WEEKLY BULLETIN FROM ROY

TWO FIXTURES
Saturday 26th January – away to Leiston League – kick off 3.00pm – coach leaves at 9:45am.
Wednesday 30th January – home to Coalville League – kick off 7:45pm.

PLAYER NEWS

  • Jack Green missed the Kings Lynn game after being involved in a car crash. He hurt his back and faces a fitness test ahead of the Leiston game.
  • Ezra Forde will miss the Leiston game through the injury he sustained in the King’s Lynn game.
  • Matt Lench will be back at Slough and will not be available for Leiston.
  • Matt Nolan is not available for Leiston because of work commitments.
  • Alex Anderson has seen a consultant on his injury and is awaiting the scan results.
  • Alfie Cue should be 100% fit for Leiston after suffering an injury in the Stourbridge game.
  • Toby Byron, our new signing from Luton Town, will be in the squad for Leiston.

BIG WINS
After seven straight defeats to have to face the teams in first and third positions in the league probably made most supporters have sleepless nights so to win both games is a tremendous achievement. Stourbridge were unbeaten in 13 games their last league defeat being at Kettering on 20 November. Their previous league defeat was back in August.

King’s Lynn were unbeaten in 19 league games with their last defeat being as far back as 1 September. It is often said football is a funny game and it is the unpredictability that really proves this.

LACK OF DRAWS
In our first 9 league games we had 4 draws whereas in our next 17 games there has only been one draw against Saturday’s opponents Leiston on 21 November.

HITCHIN TOWN UNDER 19’S
The academy side had their best result of the season on Wednesday when they beat Boreham Wood 3-1 with 2 goals from Cameron Edwards and one from Liam Tyler. Coming in to the game Boreham Wood were unbeaten having won 8 of their 9 games with a goal difference of 60-5. The under 19’s are away to Luton Town Cedars next Wednesday 30 January kick off 1.30pm.

HITCHIN TOWN LADIES FC
The Ladies game was postponed last Sunday due to a frozen pitch. This Sunday they are away to Letchworth Garden City Eagles Ladies at the Letchworth Garden City Eagles ground kick off 2.00pm.

EJA TEAM NEWS
There was only one game this weekend. The U16s had a tremendous result, beating Glebe Youth Kent 3-2 to reach the semi finals of the London FA Challenge Cup Goalscorers for the u16 were Ashley Hay, Ajay Lidder, Daniel Nun.

MANAGER’S NOTES WITH MARK BURKE

STOURBRIDGE
We took to the field to face league leaders Stourbridge on the back of seven consecutive defeats. This was obviously not ideal but I was confident we would be able to compete because I drew confidence from our performance at in form Stratford. The team did not let me down and were immediately on the front foot.

I was happy with the reaction from the players after conceding an early goal against the run of play. We stuck to our guns and continued to attack Stourbridge and fully deserved the equaliser.

The second half saw us continue in the same vein and I thought we thoroughly deserved to get the winning goal.

KING’S LYNN TOWN
I opted to stick with the 4-2-1-3 formation that proved so fruitful in the match against Stourbridge. Once again we started on the front foot and took an early lead that we doubled before half an hour had gone.

I was delighted with the energy from the players in free play and I was also really pleased with the vast improvement in the defending of set pieces. This combined with our work rate and better finishing produced our best result of the league season against a very good Kings Lynn side.

LEISTON
We travel to Leiston buoyed by our two recent wins. However I recognise that we still have a lot of work to do and we will not rest on our laurels. Leiston demonstrated in the home encounter that they are a good side and have only lost two of their last nine games.

While we will have our work cut out we will look to draw on the confidence gained from our past two performances.

COALVILLE TOWN
On Wednesday we return to Top Field to play Coalville Town for the first time in our history. Coalville are another team that are in a good position to challenge for the play-offs and it will be another tough test.

Hopefully we will have returned from Leiston with a positive result and can look to continue our recovery.

Thanks again for your continued support. It really does help the players and they were so pleased to reward your loyalty with the two victories over Stourbridge and King’s Lynn. Please keep coming and hopefully you will have much more to cheer.

ROY IZZARD